Landmark Decision - written by my great Aunt Beulah Holt Stronczek

I got permission from my great aunt to post this account of her leaving the "meeting" that she grew up in, on here, because I found it so confirming. Everyone has a story to tell and I believe they should write it out, if they can. It is therapeutic, and causes you to take account of how God has worked in your life. Besides that, it can be a blessing to others, as this account of my aunt's has been to me.
I would appreciate any comments that you might have - or stories of your own.

LANDMARK DECISION

My parents, long before my birth, belonged to the church “Meeting” called Plymouth Brethren #4. They were followers of J. N. Darby, an Englishman who, in his lifetime, had had many followers who had come out of the Church of England, a very formal fellowship. Mr. Darby’s teaching was that men should worship God without clergy in common faith together – all brothers, equal before God. During the services women were forbidden to be heard, even in prayers, but were allowed to join in the singing of hymns. Even in one’s own home women did not pray aloud. My mother gave thanks at the table only if no man was present.
It was very warm fellowship marked by sincere faith and fellowship with God and one another. Home Bible study and prayer were observed daily with all the family present.
Children attended all “Meeting” services and most learned early that God made a difference in our families. We children were warned daily about worldly temptations that we must never permit ourselves to hear or see or participate in. Any entertainment outside the home or school was forbidden. These rules were seldom, if ever, broken.
Marriages within the fellowship were encouraged and any outside romantic attraction was grave cause for suspicion and worry.
When I was a youngster, we were permitted limited playtime with our neighborhood children, but later, when my children were young teenagers, any playtime with any one outside the Fellowship was forbidden.
In fact, rules grew to be more and more strict. We were actually held together by a common invisible fear that someone would see something in our simple way of life and it could appear to someone else in the Fellowship to be a cancerous sin. We would be reprehended and gossiped about for years.

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In 1941 in Des Moines there were forty or fifty in the Fellowship, most of them my family. I was one of five unmarried young women hoping someday to find an eligible husband, but we had a serious handicap. There were no young men within 400 or 500 miles in other Meetings. Outside marriages were forbidden on punishment of excommunication. Absolutely no exceptions. Other Meetings were suffering the same consequences. No eligible young men. They had all long since found wives outside or married within Meeting families.
When Meeting conferences were held in Chicago, Knoxville, Council Bluffs, Minneapolis, Detroit, Berkley, Los Angeles, Seattle, or New York, single young hopeful women packed their bags and Bibles and were off to the “Meeting”, sometimes called “Matings”, to sing and study diligently hoping for a sighting and possible romance. Such was not my luck.
Then I met Joe. He was a shy, loyal soldier from Chicago. He had been raised Catholic, had attended parochial school. He had been born again in the Catholic Church, but, weary and somewhat deceived by the hierarchy of the church, had forsaken the Mass. At great length, spending about 90% of the time we were courting, we discussed Catholicism and the Meeting, their failures and faithfulness, rise and fall, Liturgy and music. Joe went with me to the Meetings. He liked the simple demeanor of the people. He was deeply interested in the Bible written in English. All the Bibles he had ever seen were Polish.
He wanted to go home with me to meet my family. I didn’t want to take him because I knew that in five minutes my father would say, “Are you saved?” Joe hadn’t seemed to recognize that term as related to his own intimate experience of obedience to God’s personal call to trust his life to Jesus Christ.
Well, I took Joe home and sure enough, five minutes later, Papa was arguing with Joe about Mary’s place in Catholicism. I did not interfere. I wanted Joe to know he could not change my

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father’s viewpoint. But Joe’s was changed.
When we were married, Joe was happy with me, but could not understand why I was excommunicated.
“I’m not a criminal,” he said. “All I did was marry you. Marriage is honorable. Why have they done this to you?” I didn’t know then, but 19 years later I knew why.
In a few months Joe and I were accepted back into the Fellowship. We both grew in faith and were happy in the Word.
The Meeting had a leader, Mr. James Taylor, Sr., in New York. He traveled the world over visiting many Meetings, teaching wonderful truths. Later, I learned it was all straight out of the Anglican Church Ministry. His Ministry grew more and more in separation, not only from the world but from other Christian believers. We were being taught in a very subtle way that God had given us insight of Himself that no one else possessed. This built an intense false pride in the Meeting. We were taught we were to have little or nothing to do with our neighbors. Our children could not be permitted to play with neighbor children even with supervision. We were not to have a meal with anyone outside the Fellowship. We could not have relatives come to our homes if they were not in the Fellowship. More and more exclusive rules that forbade even neighborhood Bible study. I had opportunity to do this, but had to decline.
Mr. Taylor died in 1957. There was a jockeying for his place in the Fellowship which was finally taken over by his son, James Taylor, Jr.
For some time, occasionally, someone would say that Mr. Taylor, Sr. had been in frail health and to buck up his strength he drank wine or liquor. This was a shock to us in the middle west. But we accepted the fact graciously because we had loved him.
James Jr. soon established that he was a real guzzler and drank hard liquor every day. My husband became enraged about

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this. Taylor, none too delicately, was opening the way for all people to partake openly. He found Scripture from Genesis to Revelation to substantiate this new “revelation” of the Ministry. There were other “new revelations.” Unless children were in the Fellowship by the time they were twelve years old they were forced to take their meals to the basement and eat there alone. In a few weeks the kids asked to come into the Fellowship and were accepted regardless of their state of true repentance before God.
Then the Ministry about whether the lid on the casket should be open or closed during the funeral services took up years of dispute over fragments of Scripture verses. Part of one verse against parts of another, were battered about the world. I really wonder at God’s patience with people.
In 1959 Joe and I, with our children, Esther 17 and Robert 15, drove to Kalispell, Montana for a vacation and Bible Conference. Two weeks to hike in Glacier National Park, camping in a tent, eating at our campfire, and in the evening attending lectures about the various American National Parks. We had an unforgettable, wonderful time with our children and Mother Nature.
We spent three days in Kalispell Meetings, studying fractions of Scripture and how they applied to drinking spirits. The fact that it was the (spirit of fermenti) was not mentioned.
On our long drive home Joe told me in no uncertain terms that he would no longer tolerate taking our children to a church that advocated drinking. I agreed.
I had never been in such a pressure between a rock and hard place. At this time, my father had been bedfast for eleven months following his leg amputation, because of an arterial blood clot. I was sure if I told him what our intentions were he would die quickly. He was ninety years old. I could not bear the scathing pain of such an accusation from all my huge family should he die if I told him.

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My prayers and tears ascended to God every day. But I knew Joe’s decision was right. There were many, many reason why we had to get out.
I was afraid I was going to have a real nervous breakdown. Joe didn’t push for time. He was adamant, but patient.
When I went two days a week to take my turn to help my father, I stopped eating with them because I didn’t want them to be blamed for eating with me. I always found an excuse to be working with the laundry in the basement or something outside.
In January I wrote a brief letter to someone in our Fellowship stating we were leaving the Meeting and would seek fellowship somewhere else.
The next time I went to my parent’s home to work, Papa said quietly, “I hear you both are going to leave the Meeting.”
“Yes, Papa,” I said. “Joe and I cannot raise our children where drinking liquor is taught as Scriptural doctrine.”
Much to my surprise, Papa said, “Why don’t you stay and reach that this is wrong?”
Papa knew the Scripture. He could read it in pure Greek. He had had eight years of Greek in College. He could read it in Latin. He had studied Latin seven years. He was a master in English. He had studied German two years. His bed was full of books. His Greek Testament was always within arm’s reach. He had faithfully preached the Gospel in the Fellowship for sixty years.
I didn’t realize then, but I do now, that he was suffering deeply over this painful turn of events. I read Papa my hand written notes about the Meeting in Kalispell.
“You may be right,” he said.
That took almost more courage to say than he had physical strength to give. I was afraid he might die, but God was merciful. He lived another fourteen months. No one could blame me for his death.

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February 1, 1960 we stayed home from Meeting. We have never returned. I don’t know what Scripture verses they used to excommunicate Joe and I. Esther, too, was out. Robert was perturbed because I had told him that some day he would choose a wife from the Meeting and now where would he find a wife?
Now our pathway was changed. Since we had tried to be obedient to the Ministry we had no friends. In that city where I had always lived I did not know one Christian person I could call by his or her first name. We were all alone. All my family – my brothers, sisters, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, and nieces to the third removed had all deserted us because they were all in the Fellowship.
Friends I had been raised with no longer knew us. We were outcasts into outer darkness. We were robbed of everything except our salvation. Soon I was told not to come to help my parents. I was evidently contaminated with some terrible thing. I had really been the backbone of Papa’s care, but now I was forbidden.
One day in April, while washing the breakfast dishes, I wandered back into my childhood and remembered a girl from a Christian family we had known thirty years ago. I remembered her married name and called her right away. She remembered me. I told her about getting out of the Meeting. She said she and her husband would come see us soon. The next evening Eunice and Russell Barns came. Unknown to me, he was now a Baptist minister and together they were the Iowa Child Evangelism Directors. How good God is to open up for us these treasures! Of course, I had never heard of Child Evangelism. Five thousand children studying Bible courses was almost unbelievable news. Hundreds of children being saved through these lessons was like healing salve to my broken heart. They gave us a list of ten good churches that taught Jesus’ shed blood washes away our sin.


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We went to church. We listened. They were preaching and receiving the precious Word. The preacher was praying in real humility in the power of the Holy Spirit. I looked at the people. Every one looked happy and absolutely beautiful – not broken hearted or crushed as I was. They asked us back. They were happy we came. It was unbelievable.
Our children were put in Sunday School classes with others their own age. They had friends who were believers. Now we had friends who were joyful and open about their faith in God. It was a beehive of happiness. When I heard about Missionaries for the first time and what they were doing, translating Scripture, with God’s help making converts, saving souls, joyous accomplishments, the pain and anguish began to fall away from me. Soon I felt loved. I was not ashamed of the things I heard at church. Our children were happy there. Joe was glad to go. What a real joy it was! There were so many things to be grateful for.
Occasionally I still hear things about the “Jimites.” Jim Taylor, Jr. has since died of throat cancer. Several of his successors have died. I do not know who they follow now. After we left, little by little other families got out.
In 1970 there was a big split world wide. In some countries where there had been Meetings there are no longer any Meetings. Some formed little Fellowships, some went to Churches as we did.
Many families were burst apart, separated by differences in faith, by divorce, by suicide, all caused from the shift in the teaching of Jim, Jr.
I regret to say my brothers and sisters stayed with the “Jimites.” Three are now safe at the feet of Jesus.
I went to Des Moines two years ago. I went to see my sisters. I knew this would be a terrible travesty for any of them to look at me or speak to me, but we went anyway. Grace and Katherine live together now. Katherine came to the door and

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stepped out on the porch. She looked at us not really knowing us for sure.
“I’m Katherine,” she said.
We each spoke our names. Katherine’s only son, Paul, his wife, Coleen, and their two children were with me.
Even Paul said, “I’m Paul.” It had been nine years since they had seen each other.
Katherine’s appearance was almost unbelievable. Her round face had lost all it’s familiarity. Her usual smile muscles seemed to be permanently paralyzed. Only her lips moved to speak. Her eyes excreted tears running down her cheeks. There was no, absolutely no, facial expression even when she talked to her son, Paul. She had been a wonderful, much loved school teacher. Paul is the first assistant to the president of a large insurance company in Des Moines.
She gave only one clue to her feelings. She said, “You don’t know how I have longed to see you!”
We talked about some in the family for about ten minutes. We told her we didn’t want any terrible consequences to come to her because of our visit. She didn’t answer that. I’m not exaggerating when I suppose the gossip went around the world that she had talked to us and had seen her son and his family who are out of fellowship.
When my two brothers and sister died, I did not hear about it for months.
In 1990, when my nephew’s son and his wife died in a car accident, we all learned about it on the front page of the newspaper. The two fathers were forbidden to attend the funeral. They went to the cemetery and the undertaker, much to his dislike, asked them to stand back by their car and not to go to the graves. He had been instructed to forbid them to even go up to the graves of their own children as long as the Brethren were there.

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I have no malice. My tears washed away all that. All this experience has caused me to value my own family.
This is a short list of Meeting doctrine that became widely practiced:
Not supposed to have any money invested in banks, or securities.
No life insurance. No insurance on your business.
Don’t send your children to college.
Can’t eat in public restaurants. Food not prepared with “Holy Hands.”
Can’t stay in motels while traveling. Stop only with people in fellowship or drive straight to destination.
Dale Godron, rescued by a telephone lineman, could not attend the life saver’s dinner.
All professional people had to give up their work. Dr. Phil Truan is now busy raking lawns. Marvin Holt, a successful architect, now buys and repairs old houses to sell again – a plain carpenter.
“Movement of the Spirit.” A new ministry or teaching, was introduced to be like the cloud over the Holy of Holies. The cloud moved so the people moved. The teaching changed character and was accepted because they taught this was a new revelation, time to move on.
People could not go to the hospital for help.
It was forbidden to adopt children. The reason: if God had wanted you to have children He would have given them to you by birth.

Our landmark decision to leave the Meeting was very painful, but it was a happy decision because we grew in truth, following the Scripture as it is written.